Layer 3 proxy devices are devices operating at the third layer of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model. Such a proxy device may be used as a router or a bad balancer and is provided for distributing traffic from client devices to server devices. A proxy device thus operates as a distributing node in a communication network between Clients and Servers. All traffic from such Clients may then be forwarded to the proxy device and then distributed to the most appropriate Server. For this reason, the layer 3 proxy device needs to have a high capacity and high stability. As the volume of traffic that passes through such a proxy device is large, it thus has to be reliable.
Before such a proxy device is being put in action it thus has to be tested, which may be performed in a laboratory environment. The proxy device should furthermore receive high enough traffic volumes in order to be properly tested.
The software and hardware resources required for generating the traffic volumes is therefore a factor that is limiting to the ability in testing.
Testing is thus is expensive both in terms of the amount of devices needed as well as in the amount of processing required.
It would therefore be of interest to reduce the processing resource use, while still allowing the proxy device to be fully tested.